


Postcards From the Edge

by adventurepants



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s08e01 New Order (1), Episode: s08e02 New Order (2), F/M, Gen, smushy fixits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-15 22:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adventurepants/pseuds/adventurepants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s then that Sam realizes maybe she’s not okay, the way she insisted to the Colonel, to Daniel and Teal’c, that she was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Postcards From the Edge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gingasaur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingasaur/gifts).



There’s a new doctor at the SGC when they get back, and Sam hates her for not being Janet. Maybe it’s childish, but she’s been through an ordeal, and her best friend is gone, and who can blame her for secretly refusing to learn Dr. Whatever’s name?

It’s then that Sam realizes maybe she’s not okay, the way she insisted to the Colonel, to Daniel and Teal’c, that she was. She doesn’t hate people she doesn’t know—she doesn’t make a habit of hating people, period—but here she is, absolutely loathing this perfectly nice woman who’s just doing her job, because she’s not _her_ doctor. Janet should be there, to place her hand gently over Sam’s own and tell her everything is all right, and Sam has to close her eyes against the thought that that will never, ever happen again.

She’s given a clean bill of health, and she slips away quickly, careful not to stick around long enough to run into Colonel O’Neill on the way to his own medical once-over. She’s not sure she can bear his concerned scrutiny, his inability to say how he feels. She’s not sure she can bear to look at his face anymore, when the last time they spoke- really spoke, he was dying, and she had tried to tell him she loved him, and he had said that he knew.

She calls Cassie in the car on the way home. She’s early getting back, having been beamed right back to Cheyenne Mountain by the Asgard rather than taking the ten-day journey by spaceship, so there’s no trace of worry in Cassie’s voice. She sounds happy to hear from Sam so soon, ecstatic to learn that Jack has been unfrozen, and wants to know if Sam wants her to order them some dinner.

Sam’s not hungry, but she agrees to Chinese anyway, and hangs up after telling Cassie she’ll be home soon. She doesn’t call Pete.

Cassie’s watching TV in the living room, legs drawn up underneath her, when Sam gets in. She looks up. “Hey,” she says, jumping up off the couch and rushing to meet Sam with a hug in the doorway.

“Hey, Cass,” Sam says, and does her best impression of a smile as she follows Cassie back into the living room. It’s odd, coming home to someone after so many years living alone, and she can’t decide if she’d rather her house be empty right then, or if Cassie’s going to be the one thing that keeps her sane.

“You look tired,” Cassie says, standing over Sam as she sinks down into the couch.

Sam nods and pats the couch next to her, realizing for the first time just how exhausted she really is. “It’s been a long…” she tries to count the days and finds that the last few run painfully together. “Couple of weeks,” she finishes.

Cassie settles down next to her and leans against her side, the way she did when she was little. She’s seemed young in a lot of ways, since losing Janet. Not quite so silent as she was when they first brought her to Earth, but definitely quiet, and withdrawn. She doesn’t go out with her friends anymore, just stays inside and does her homework and watches TV, and it makes Sam’s memory of losing her own mother feel raw again. She wishes she knew how to be half the mom her best friend had been.

“But everything’s okay, right?” Cassie asks. “Jack’s okay?”

“He’s fine. Good as new, in fact.” She pats Cassie’s knee. “You should call him tomorrow, I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.”

“And you’re all right?”

“Of course,” Sam says, but it sounds wrong and she knows it.

Cassie looks at her curiously and opens her mouth to speak again, but is interrupted by the doorbell. Dinner. “I’ll get it,” she says.

She returns with a bag full of food, which she sets down on the coffee table and promptly ignores, sitting back down next to Sam. “Did something happen, where you went?”

Sam lets out a breath. “Yes.”

“You can’t tell me about it, can you?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Cass.”

She can see Cassie choosing her next question carefully. “Could you have died?” The old _Friends_ rerun on the television is an awkward background for the conversation, but Sam doesn’t see the remote.

She thinks about lying, but she’s never lied to Cassie before. She doesn’t think she can stomach it. “Yes.”

Cassie stiffens immediately, and Sam scrambles to reassure her. “But it’s okay, honey, I’m fine now. Not a scratch on me.” She pushes up her sleeves and holds out her arms for Cassie to inspect. “See? I’m okay.”

“For now.”

Sam can’t deny that she has a point. Cassie’s face has gone very pale, and Sam knows that she’s running through a million possibilities in her mind, all the ways Sam could die every time she steps through the Stargate or gets on a spaceship: capture, torture, stranded in space… mysterious disease, an errant staff blast.

“Cassie, I’m all right, I promise. I’m fine.”

Cassie stands. “I’m not hungry,” she mumbles, and turns to leave.

“Sweetheart, don’t,” Sam starts, but Cassie cuts her off.

“I have a test to study for.”

Sam is left alone in her living room, choosing that moment, ironically, to decide that she didn’t really want to come home to an empty house. She sits still for a few minutes, suddenly so tired that she can’t imagine ever moving. Less than a day ago she was on Fifth’s ship, no rescue on the way and no chance of escape, and now she was sitting on her couch in her living room in Colorado, perfectly safe. It all seems too easy, somehow, even though nothing about it had been.

For a moment she’s struck by the thought that maybe she’s not safe, maybe Fifth still has her ( _why would he have just let me go?_ ) and this is all a cruel fabrication. Her heart starts to beat a little faster, and she grips the couch cushions, knuckles turning white. _Stop it,_ she tells herself. _This is real. This is real._

She forces herself to get up and put the food in the refrigerator, because there’s no sense in it going bad, and decides that she’s probably better off just going to bed. By necessity, she’s gotten pretty good at self-soothing over the years, but she can’t stop her hands from shaking, and all she wants is to go to sleep for about a year.

She dreams about Fifth. She had expected it, but that doesn’t make it easy, to be jolted awake and still feel his hands on her, _in her_. To remember Fifth, in Pete’s body, locking her in the bedroom of the house where she’d never lived, forcing her down onto the bed, and telling her she would never, ever get away again. She wakes up drenched in sweat, panting, and it’s several minutes before she can stop shaking enough to stand.

The thing about not living alone, is that when you get up and turn the coffee maker on in the middle of the night, it doesn’t always go unnoticed.

“Sam? What are you doing?”

Sam turns around to see Cassie in the doorway, squinting against the light. “I didn’t mean to wake you up,” Sam says, a twinge of guilt just barely breaking through the numbness. “I’m sorry, honey.”

Cassie shrugs. “It’s okay. Why are you making coffee at two in the morning?”

“I wasn’t having a very restful sleep,” Sam answers, smiling tentatively. “So I figured I’d just… stay up.” She opens a cabinet and pulls out an oversized blue mug, which she fills with black coffee before heading for the kitchen table. “You should go back to sleep, you have school in the morning.”

Cassie ignores her and sits down at the table. “Nightmare?”

Sam takes a sip. “Yeah. Pretty bad one.”

“You wanna tell me about it?”

Sam puts her mug down and drums her fingers almost nervously on the table. “No, I’m fine. I’ll be okay.”

“Mom always said it was better to talk about it. I always felt better when I did.”

Sam shakes her head. “I don’t want to worry you.”

Cassie rolls her eyes- Sam can’t tell if she means to or not. “I’m almost eighteen. I’m not a kid anymore.”

Sam smiles at that, and it’s true. “No, you’re not. You’re almost grown up.”

Cassie shrugs. “I still need you,” she mumbles, like she’s embarrassed.

“And I’ll be here. I promise.”

“Don’t promise,” Cassie says immediately, and looks down, staring at the table. “My mother and father promised. Mom promised.”

Sam feels that awful pang in her heart again. She can’t remember how long it took to be able to think of her mother without aching, but she knows it seemed like forever. And Cassie’s doing this for the second time.

“I’m sorry, Cass.”

Cassie blinks a couple of times and rubs at her eyes, trying her very best not to cry. “I know.”

They end up back in the living room with the TV on again, Cassie asleep with her head on Sam’s shoulder. When Sam finally drops off to sleep, she dreams of Janet, who hugs her tightly and tells her that everything is going to be just fine.

***

She writes her report the next day, struggling to find professional, emotionless language to describe the way Fifth had violated her. Daniel walks by the lab after she’s been working for a while and pokes his head in the room. “Sam? Aren’t you supposed to be at home? Resting?” He says that last word like he knows there’s no chance.

“It’s my report,” she answers. “I wanted to get it over with.”

“Ah,” he says, and she knows he understands. Colonel O’Neill puts off writing his reports no matter the subject; Teal’c turns his in right away. Sam and Daniel fall somewhere in between- some things they want to hold onto before releasing them to a numbered document in a neatly-labeled file, words on a page that could never truly convey their experience. Some things they want out of their hands as soon as possible, filed away in a drawer instead of festering in their chests, no longer their burden to carry.

She hasn’t told them much about what happened to her, only that she’d been Fifth’s prisoner, that he was angry at her for betraying him. It was a fifty-fifty chance as to whether the Colonel would read her report, but she knew Daniel would, and so would Teal’c. And then they’d know.

She sighs, and the breath is unexpectedly shaky. She minimizes the window on her laptop as Daniel comes to sit next to her. “Fifth tortured me,” she blurts out, startling both herself and Daniel.

“Sam,” he says, and she can’t possibly begin to name all the things she hears in his voice. Horror is one. Pain is another.

“It’s- you’re going to read it in my report, and I didn’t want that to be the first you heard about it. I didn’t want you to find out that way.” She shuts the laptop and lets her hand rest on top of it, until Daniel takes it in his own and squeezes it, waiting for her to continue. “Nothing to leave a mark, obviously. The hand in my forehead didn’t feel good, but it was… it was mostly mental. He made me think I was back on Earth, that I was…” she laughs, and it sounds woefully out of place. “That I was living on a farm, with Pete. And when I wouldn’t believe it… I thought he’d either kill me, or keep me trapped in his game forever.”

She brings her free hand to her forehead, where a phantom pain is growing. “I didn’t think he’d let me go. I didn’t think… that getting home was even a glimmer of a possibility.”

“Well, that’s not new, almost every situation we get into is impossible.” Daniel smiles at her, but there’s a deep sadness in his eyes. “Sam, I’m so sorry we didn’t get to you sooner.”

“Oh, no, you did everything you could,” Sam says, rushing to defend him. “My life wasn’t the only thing at stake.”

He shakes his head. Daniel’s never been one to value one life over any other, but Sam is his family. “We thought we’d already lost you.”

Sam nods, and for a moment imagines her team returning home without her, having to replace her. She’s heard that Cameron Mitchell is recovering, is determined to walk again, and she always thought he’d be good for the Stargate Program- she wonders if it would have been him. She wonders who would have taken Cassie in, then. She wonders how long Pete would have mourned her. (Pete, who doesn’t even know she’s back on Earth, yet. She shakes that thought away before she can start to feel guilty about it.)

“You didn’t, though,” she answers Daniel, finally. “I’m here.” He’s still holding her hand, and she meets his eyes steadily as she adds, “I’m okay.” She nearly believes it, this time.

He smiles, and doesn’t look quite so sad anymore as he says, “I suppose we all have more lives than a cat, don’t we?”

She chuckles. “You do, at least.”

Daniel stands, and nods at her computer. “Listen, I know you wanna get that report done, but what do you say to taking a break and having lunch with me. Even Sam Carter needs occasional fuel.”

Sam looks at her laptop for a moment, but her decision is already made. She’s had about enough of reliving her time on the replicator ship. She stands to follow Daniel. “Sure.”

They find Colonel O’Neill and Teal’c in the mess at their regular table. “Carter!” the Colonel says, looking pleased, with enough food surrounding him to make up for all the meals he missed while frozen.

“Major Carter.” Teal’c nods at her, smiling. Neither of them seem particularly surprised to see her there, and she’s grateful to have these people in her life, that know her so well. As she digs into a bowl of that blessedly familiar blue jello, she’s absolutely certain that being here, with her team, is infinitely more healing than any amount of time off would be.

***

Sam’s report takes longer than she thought it would. She keeps stopping to work on other things, and to tell herself, over and over, that she is really home, she’s safe, and Fifth is gone.

Teal’c appears at the lab late in the day- he makes it seem like a chance encounter, but Sam is pretty sure that he came looking for her. “Major Carter. Should you not have left for home by now?”

She smiles at his thinly veiled concern. “Hi, Teal’c. I’m just trying to finish up some things before I go.”

He approaches her, and without preamble, says, “I regret that I was unable to prevent your capture by the Replicator, Fifth.”

This simple admission is enough to make Sam feel touched and guilty all at once. They all feel so badly about what happened to her, and it makes her uncomfortable. They’re a team, and yet this experience has isolated her in a way that nothing else had ever done, not even her solitary concussion on board the Prometheus. “Teal’c, it’s all right. There was nothing you could have done. I don’t blame you for anything.”

He dips his head, a nod and a bow in one. “I do not believe you would blame me even if I was at fault.”

“No, I probably wouldn’t. But you’re not at fault. And everything turned out okay, didn’t it?” Everything except for how she feels like she’s come back wrong, like Fifth has somehow damaged her.

“Yes,” Teal’c answers, though he looks like he has more to say. “You will feel more like yourself as days pass,” he finally adds.

Sam is not surprised at Teal’c’s ability to hit the nail on the head, as it were, and she finds, as well, that she agrees with him. Fifth has neither the power nor the right to change her. “Thank you. I think I will.”

***

Sam turns in her report before she goes home. Dr. Weir is still settling into her job, and she doesn’t know Sam yet, but she means well when she insists, firmly, that Sam take at least the next day off. It’s Dr. Weir’s obvious good intention that makes Sam choose not to fight it- she’s only asking one day, after all.

It’s a school day for Cassie, so Sam is left home alone, catching up on science journals, until her doorbell rings not long after lunchtime. It’s Colonel O’Neill, and she blinks at him, standing outside her door as if his being there is an everyday occurrence. “Hi,” she manages after a moment.

“Hey. Can I come in?”

“Of course,” she says, stepping back to allow him to enter. It’s a strange reversal, she thinks, of the day she showed up his house not too long ago, wanting to say goodbye while she still could. But this time, neither one of them are dying, and she can’t think of why the Colonel might have come all the way to her house unannounced.

They stand awkwardly in front of each other in the entrance to her house, until Sam manages to get her wits about her, somewhat, and finds her voice. “Can I get you anything?”

She can see him trying to decide whether to ask if she has any beer, but he settles against it, for whatever reason. “No, I’m fine.” He nods toward her living room. “You wanna go sit down?”

“Of course. Yes.” She leads him into the living room, and they sit down on the couch together, where she looks at him expectantly. “So, what brings you here?”

He shrugs, and makes his face look casual, but she knows him better than that. “Just wanted to see how you were doing. You all right?”

The corners of her mouth turn up. “I’m fine. You saw me yesterday, remember? I’m the one who should be asking how you are, you almost-” she stops, abruptly. “You were in just as much trouble as I was.”

“Nah. I got frozen like Han Solo, that’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” He grins at her. “I’m doing great.”

She nods. “So am I.” A dozen things pass between them, unspoken. It’s still true and they both know it. They’d each rather die themselves than lose the other.

He looks like he wants to say something, then, but he glances around the room first, eyes landing on a picture of Sam’s mother. “I read your report,” he says.

That makes sense, then, that he’d come to check on her. It made less sense that he’d read it already, but she’s sure Daniel had heavily suggested it. She can’t decide if she’s irritated with him or not, and all she can manage to say to the Colonel is, “Ah.”

“I’d like to get my hands on that bastard,” he says, looking away, and she knows it’s not out of some misplaced desire to protect her—he knows she doesn’t need protecting—but because he’s seized with anger at what Fifth did to her. There’s a familiar, twisty feeling in her chest: it aches, mildly, but is not altogether unpleasant.

“If he comes back, we’ll be ready,” Sam says, but Colonel O’Neill looks like he’s half-ready to go out looking for Fifth himself.

“Yeah,” is all he says, though, finally turning back to her. That feeling over her heart intensifies, and she’s not sure, but she thinks she might have been more willing to exist within Fifth’s fantasy world if it had taken place at a cabin with the Colonel—with Jack—instead of on a farm with Pete.

As if he knows what she’s thinking (which is beyond startling,) Colonel O’Neill chooses that moment to ask, “So… how’s Pete?”

“Oh. He’s… he’s fine,” Sam says, knowing she sounds rattled.

The Colonel looks at her curiously, and just like that, her lie unravels before it’s really begun. “I haven’t called him yet. He doesn’t know I’m back.”

He makes a non-committal “hm” noise, like everything he’d want to say is nothing he can.

“It was Pete,” she says, suddenly. She hadn’t been specific in her report, she’d only said that Fifth had created a believable artificial scenario. She left out the place and the person. “Fifth took on Pete’s likeness, he… he had me trapped in that fake world. And I know it wasn’t really Pete, and that’s not even really why I don’t want to see him, but I just. I can’t call him yet.” She’s crossed a line somewhere, telling him all this.

“C’mere,” is all he says in response, and then his arm is around her, and her head is on his shoulder. It’s far too familiar a position for an Air Force Major and her commanding officer to be in, but its familiarity is what finally soothes her. This is how they say all the things they can’t.

Eventually, he asks her, “How’s Cassie doing?”

Sam lifts her head; the moment is over. “She’s… it’s been hard, losing Janet. For both of us.”

He looks away again, and Sam tries not to count how many people they’ve both lost. “She’s lucky to have you.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t feel that way sometimes.”

“Hey, come on. Cassie loves you.”

“I know.” She’s sure of that much, at least. “And it’s getting better. She’s not sleeping as much anymore, and I’m helping her apply to colleges.” She remembers something. “Did she call you? I told her she should.”

“Yeah,” he says. “She did. She sounds…” he struggles to find a word for it. “Older. She said you missed me while I was frozen.”

Sam smirks at him. “Only slightly. All those quiet, well-ordered briefings were jarring.”

“Of course,” he says, gesturing indistinctly with one hand. “Familiarity.”

“Right.”

After a moment, he clears his throat. “I should get back to the mountain. I’m supposed to see Dr. Weir about… something,” he says, and it’s more likely he’s forgotten the subject of the meeting rather than that it’s something he’s not supposed to talk about.

She walks him out, and he turns to her at the door. “I’m sorry, Sam.”

She’s not sure what makes her do it, but she hugs him, then. He seems surprised at first, but it’s only a couple of seconds before he’s hugging her back. “Thank you for coming by, Sir,” she tells him.

He comes over again a couple of days later, on Sunday, for breakfast. Sam has both called and seen Pete by that point, but something makes her invite Colonel O’Neill instead, saying that Cassie would love to see him. She makes them pancakes, regular round ones, until the Colonel takes command of the stove and starts trying to make them in shapes.

“Jack,” Cassie protests, giggling. “I’m a little old for whimsically shaped pancakes, don’t you think?”

“Nonsense. Never too old,” he says, pointing the spatula at her.

Sam puts up her hands and cedes control of their breakfast, even though Colonel O’Neill’s fish looks a great deal more like a misshapen mutant. She laughs. It’s going to be a good day.

She’s not fine, the way she says she is, but she’s starting to believe she will be.


End file.
